MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES FOR SENIORS

The city’s distinguished Council Members for Santa Barbara, and the County Council of our fair county have become needlessly tangled up in its Medical Marijuana Dispensaries (MMD) decisions. There is no doubt that something had to be done about the dubious dispensaries popping up all over town, and their motley crew that ran them.

But the California State Department of Justice came out with “Guidelines For The Security and Non-Diversion of Marijuana For Medical Use” in August of 2008. Therefore reasonable minds have a very safe backup for their city ordinances regulating the distribution of medical marijuana to those for whom it was meant to help -- those that have cancer, hepatitis C, glaucoma, arthritis, migraines, chronic pain, spasticity “and any other illness marijuana provides relief.”

But first let’s do a fact check that explains how California State law got us to this point of trying to help the sick.

For those 38 percent that still believe marijuana to be the devil’s lettuce, have no fears. It is still illegal under the 1970 Federal Controlled Substance Act and the DEA makes a point of proving it whenever they feel like it. But for California law enforcement, they are regulated by what started out as Prop. 215 – The Compassionate Use Act of 1996 which decriminalized the cultivation and use of marijuana by seriously ill patients upon a doctor’s recommendation. It may be true there is no scientific proof that it is a healer of any of the above illnesses, but somehow it seems to work for some people the same way vitamins work, even though there is no scientific proof of its healing powers. It is therefore “holistic.”

In 2003 Senate Bill 420 – The Medical Marijuana Program Act (MMP) limited the amount to be decriminalized by a registered patient to 6 full size plants or 12 small plants and eight ounces of the dried bud from the plant. It also mandated the Department of Public Health to establish and maintain a program for the voluntary registration for qualified patients, and to issue medical marijuana identification cards. All of this includes the patient’s care-giver also but that is not the point.

The point is that California has taken the crime out of marijuana for registered patients. That’s it! The question still remains how are people over 50 years old, let alone 70, suppose to get the relief which is their right under the law, if the City Council cannot adopt or modify to their liking the guidelines permeated by the State’s Attorney General, Edmond G. Brown Jr. in 2008.

A certain amount of common sense would be necessary. Anyone who has read Hemingway’s “A Clean Well-Lighted Place,” would know what a dispensary should look like. The vendors would ideally be courteous and want to help you. Even a little compassion may be shown. It should be the type of professional ambiance a 70 year old woman, or her care-giver, felt good walking in and better walking out. There should not be 100 kinds of bongs and various smoking apparatus. If the dispensary wants to sell something else let it be books on health or literature, not free advertisement magazines on how to take a picture of a bud or send away for cannabis seeds.

But here is the kicker, in 2007 the California State Board of Equalization (BOE) noticed all dispensaries that are according to the guidelines suppose to be non-profit co-ops, that they are taxing marijuana sales, as well as requiring these businesses to hold seller’s permits. This is where the rubber meets the road. Who does not want the tax revenue from marijuana transactions to go into California’s county and state coffers? The other option is the Mexican Cartel.

The longer the City Council keeps the moratorium on dispensaries going, the better it is for the illicit drug trade. But more importantly, those that truly are in need and the persons for whom the marijuana was made legal have been deprived of the compassion the law provided them.

At a recent City Council meeting May 18th only one person spoke on behalf of the ailing seniors. The focus seemed to be on the children and schools. To those people I ask, to whom do you think the cartel and every other drug dealer dispenses their drugs? It is certainly not to the ailing seniors.